When Imthiaz extended this invitation to me, it was impossible for me to refuse for three reasons. Firstly, Bakeer Markar was one of those unforgettable Speakers who could command the respect of the House; a legend in his time. Secondly, Imthiaz and I had known each other from the time we were school boys. He captained the debating team at Ananda College while I captained the debating team at St. Joseph’s College — we met in those circumstances and have been friends since. Thirdly, one of the grandsons of the late Mr. Bakeer Markar, one of the sons of Imthiaz, Fadhil, a very bright young man who was the President of the LSE students’ union, worked with me as a volunteer intern at our Mission in Geneva when I served as Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative.

Those personal reasons apart, the political scientist in me found the topic irresistible because this topic is the key, the most crucial problem that Sri Lanka has to face today. It is indeed the topic, the issue, the problem which framed our development and our discontents, our wars and our periods of peace, our crisis and our construction since Independence. It is the issue that we have not yet resolved. It is the question to which we have not provided a satisfactory answer, though we have triumphed over the main obstacle to the strengthening of a Sri Lankan identity – the deadly, protracted armed challenge posed by the separatist terrorist LTTE. That military triumph, historic as it is, is only a pre-condition, a pre-requisite for the construction of a Sri Lankan identity. We have removed an obstacle, but we have not yet reached our destination. So this is indeed the topic that all politicians, all intellectuals, artists, and concerned citizens must address their minds to. Obviously I cannot exhaust this topic or even do justice to it in the time available to me. I hope to speak in our link language, in English and if time permits I will switch to Sinhala for a few minutes in order to summarize my views. But what I do want to achieve is to shed light on some aspects of this problem; to disturb you in some way and catalyze a process of thinking.

Now, when we talk about Sri Lankan identity, what do we really mean? What does it mean to be a Sri Lankan? We may put it even more basically or crudely: To whom does Sri Lanka belong? This is the crucial question. Let us face it squarely. I submit that there are broadly speaking, three perspectives on this. These may not be explicit, though some have been explicitly stated — but in many cases, they are perspectives that are and have been the implicit co-ordinates of policy. What are these three views?

One is that Sri Lanka belongs to the few. The other is that Sri Lanka belongs to the many and the third perspective, which I hold and which I hope to urge on this audience, is that Sri Lanka belongs equally to all its citizens. What do I mean when I say that there are those who hold that Sri Lanka belongs to the few? If we look back at what is seen, more or less accurately, as the golden age of Sri Lankan or Ceylonese identity — the first decade after independence — I would submit that there was something seriously flawed in the social contract of that time. If that were not the case, how does one explain the election results of 1947 where the parties of the Left did so well that they would have formed the first government of independent Ceylon if they had agreed to a coalition between themselves and the progressive independents? How do we explain the mass protest, the ‘Hartal’ of 1953 and the turning point or ‘rupture’ of 1956? These are explicable only because, there was a sense among the masses, that to be "Ceylonese" was something restricted to an unrepresentative elite. There was a notion that a few, a certain class of people, ethnically diverse but socially integrated, were the real owners of Ceylon. This perspective or perception is an obstacle, a challenge to the formation of a true Sri Lankan identity because the country cannot belong to just a few, policy cannot benefit only a few and if it does or if it is perceived as so doing, there will be a majoritarian backlash of one sort or the other, i.e. on class or cultural lines or a combination. This view that Sri Lanka belonged to the privileged few, be they domestic or foreign, or that those at the top held such a covert conviction and acted upon it, was one of the well springs of the second insurrection of the JVP and even of certain parliamentary electoral outcomes such as 1970 and 2004.

The second perspective is that Sri Lanka belongs to the many, to the majority. Now on the surface this seems justifiable, but I would say that it is a very dangerous view. The "many" can be described and have been described by political formations in Sri Lanka in two senses. One is socio economic. Those on the Sri Lankan radical left, quite different from the radical left elsewhere in the Asia and in the rest of the world, have defined the many not only in socio economic terms, that is as the poor or the working people, but as the many of the many, the working people minus the Tamil and Muslim poor; the Sinhala underprivileged. This is the ideology of Sinhala Only combined with the doctrine of class struggle (and the practice of class/caste struggle). The Sinhalese are felt to be an underprivileged nation, oppressed, discriminated against and marginalized by an imperialist-backed cosmopolitan elite or a minority dominated compact. But whether you describe it in strictly socio economic i.e. ethnicity blind/neutral class terms or in more loaded ethno religious or ethno cultural terms, that is a way of excluding vital segments of our citizens be they the entrepreneurial classes, the professionals, the middle classes, the urban dwellers or the ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities. These segments are seen as somehow non-national, alien, and reactionary.

The notion that Sri Lanka belongs to the Sinhala Buddhists while the minorities are somehow guests or visitors, has directly or indirectly caused the conflicts that have devoured almost a quarter million citizens of this country in the 60 odd years since Independence. One may ask why I put together those who have died in two Southern insurrections which were ideologically based or class-based, and those who have died in successive wars in the North and the East which were ethnicity based. The reason is this: The failure to construct an inclusionary, stable, successful Sri Lankan identity not only alienated the minorities, but also blocked the path to sustainable economic development in the country as a whole and therefore was responsible at least in part for the stagnation that led to unemployment, poverty, inequality and the resultant youth insurrections in the South. This is a constructive critique of Sri Lanka that was made most cogently, consistently and with the greatest authority by Singapore’s Lee Kwan Yew. Thus, the unresolved question of identity, the idea that Sri Lanka is a country that belongs and must be "ruled by" an ethno-religious or ethno-lingual majority, is something that will have to be transcended if we are to heal and progress as a country and a people.

The third perspective, which I believe is the only pathway to build a successful Sri Lankan identity is the idea that Sri Lanka belongs equally to all of its citizens irrespective of whether they happen to the members of an ethnic or linguistic or religious majority or minority. The idea of the equality of citizenship, that Sri Lanka is a country that belongs equally to all Sri Lankans, is something that we shall have to fight for. That is a relatively simple idea, surely. We live on a little island. Either we can consider and conduct ourselves as members of a single extended family, with members/relatives who, naturally, are different from each other — or we can continue to consider and conduct ourselves warring tribes which will continue to fight each other for hegemony or a segmented, separate sovereign space on this small island. If we opt for the latter course, we continue to waste more time, more resources, more lives and blight our future while failing completely to fulfill the magnificent potential that we have as a country. This is the moment, now is the moment to make this decision, because we are in the aftermath of a Thirty Years War. We have almost experienced a Second Independence. It is a second chance that few countries get, and we must be proud of having wrested this chance. We must be proud of being able to achieve this victory over a very formidable and internationally notorious terrorist army, not just a terrorist group, not just an organization, but a movement and militia. Our people have shown that they have the psychological and spiritual resources to fight and win, not to succumb to terrorism. Now, we must go on to demonstrate that we have the wisdom, the sagacity, the generosity to build a united nation, Sri Lanka, which is not a synonym or disguise for the dominance of this or that community. If Sri Lanka is only another name for a Sinhala Country or ‘Sinhala Rata’, then once again you will have the constituent peoples of this island drifting apart from each other. That drift may not take the form of a violent insurgency. I am not really worried about the renewal of the LTTE’s military campaign because I think we have a splendid army which is perfectly capable of crushing any such resurgent violence at the first sign of its appearance— but I am worried about the gulf between our peoples which prevent us from pooling our talents, capabilities and resources and flourishing as a society, a nation, a country.